\u201cI was so much older then, I\u2019m younger than that now\u201d \u2013 Bob Dylan \u2013 My Back Pages<\/em><\/p>\nTwo years past:\u00a0 it was mid-October of 2016.\u00a0 The nation was in the literal depths of the Presidential election.\u00a0 Hillary\u2019s emails were already being leaked; the \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape was out.\u00a0 The nation\u2019s leaders secretly knew that our election was being influenced by a foreign power (Russia, not China as President Trump suggested again last night.)\u00a0 They determined that revealing that information would have a greater impact on the future President, than concealing it.\u00a0 These smart people, President Obama among them, who knew polling and how to run national campaigns \u2013 they knew Hillary was going to win (what that leaves us is why, or if, they were really wrong?)<\/p>\n
Only one bomb was left to explode \u2013 FBI Director Comey\u2019s public investigation into convicted pervert Anthony Weiner\u2019s laptop, looking for more Clinton emails.\u00a0 That\u2019s something any political campaign would want to happen to their opponent \u2013 a pervert, named Weiner, husband to the candidate\u2019s closest advisor, with the candidate\u2019s classified emails on his laptop (alongside the perverted pictures \u2013 it\u2019s a great visual.)\u00a0 It was a \u201cbell\u201d that couldn\u2019t be \u201cun-rung,\u201d even when the investigation ultimately revealed nothing.<\/p>\n
We learned about \u201cbots\u201d and \u201cbot farms.\u201d\u00a0 We learned (at least this sixty-two year old did) that more people got their information from Facebook then they did from the news media.\u00a0 We learned that the Russians were working hard to influence our politics; adding fuel to our fires, splitting our alliances, and disrupting our conversations with extreme views that stopped our dialogs.<\/p>\n
We found out that secretive companies, as well as other governments, had \u201cpsycho-graphic\u201d programs that could identify and single out individuals and carefully persuade them of a particular political view.\u00a0 We found that the data used was handed to them by a company we trusted as a \u201csocial network;\u201d that the brilliant Mark Zuckerberg had found a way to make billions of dollars on the information we gave him, and wasn\u2019t all that concerned with what happened to it once he got his payments.\u00a0 We discovered that the \u201cline\u201d between persuasion and manipulation was crossed long ago.<\/p>\n
And, quietly, we heard that our actual voting system was compromised.\u00a0 How much and to what effect no one will admit \u2013 even now.\u00a0 But it seems likely that what we\u2019ve already heard is just the \u201ctip.\u201d<\/p>\n
But we are not the same as we were in 2016.\u00a0 We are now in the \u201c#MeToo\u201d era, we have watched the Women\u2019s March, we has seen the power of the Parkland kids, we know the utter disaster of Trump\u2019s Presidency.\u00a0We have been energized and mobilized and we need to change the world.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s October of 2018, three weeks before \u201cthe election after the election.\u201d\u00a0 Our government has really done little to \u201cfix\u201d any of the undue influences in our process, mostly because the \u201cwinning Administration\u201d views any question about the election as a question of the legitimacy of their win. \u00a0They should.<\/p>\n
So as we go back to the polls, the polling shows much the same as two years ago, that the United States is polarized, but there seems to be a \u201cwave\u201d of Democratic support coming.\u00a0We know that \u201cthe bots\u201d still live:\u00a0there already are trending chats re-hashing the Clinton\/Sanders battles of two years ago.\u00a0 We see the \u201cpolls\u201d that say more people think Trump will be re-elected in 2020.\u00a0 We need to realize:\u00a0 NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the digital world.<\/p>\n
NOTHING HAS BEEN FIXED \u2013 so don\u2019t fall for the same tricks that worked in 2016.\u00a0 There is no incentive for the \u201cwinners\u201d of 2016 to alter things; that\u2019s what they used to win.\u00a0 And the \u201cbig money,\u201d in campaigning, \u00a0and for the social media companies, is in manipulation \u2013 so they continue to do so.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all \u201cin the mind\u201d of the voter.\u00a0 And if that mind is strong enough, to resist the dragging weight of the \u201cbots\u201d and the \u201cfalse flags,\u201d they can go to the polls and vote.\u00a0 And, if they actual election systems aren\u2019t fully compromised, then there will be change.\u00a0 And it the systems are compromised, we will know, and a whole new battle will begin.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about the vote.\u00a0Do it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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